The Nothing Job

by Nick Oldham

  Leading from the front with his trusty Maglite torch on, Henry went up cautiously, the steps creaky. He stepped on to the landing and tried the lights. They did not work. Looking up, he saw the bulb was missing. There were three doors off the landing, all open, and no lights on in any of the rooms. A quick check of what were two bedrooms and a bathroom found them uninhabited.

  ‘He definitely came in here … let’s see if there’s a loft and a cellar.’

  The entrance to the loft was in the ceiling above the landing and it took only a glance to see that it hadn’t been opened for a long time. The gaps between the frame and the flap had been thickly painted over, probably years before.

  ‘Cellar?’ Henry said and went back down to the hallway. The cellar door was in the kitchen. Henry opened it slowly and peered down the tight and steep concrete steps ending at another door on the left at their foot. It was closed and obviously led into the cellar under the house. Even from the top step, Henry could see chinks of light around the edge of this ill-fitting door.

  He exchanged a glance with all three officers, then a nod. After a quick readjustment of his stab vest, and pinning his warrant card to his chest so it was clearly visible, he took out his baton and flicked it out with a crack like a whip.

  ‘He’s got to be down here,’ he hissed.

  He dipped his head, wondering just how big folk used to be when these houses were built. Must have been midgets, he guessed and began to sidle down the steps and on to the tiny landing at their foot. The cellar door was secured by a latch, which he unhooked, then pushed the door open on hinges that groaned.

  ‘Police officers,’ he said again loudly.

  The cellar was low-ceilinged – probably for the midgets of yesteryear – dank and poorly lit, but he could see across to the wall opposite, where a naked man was manacled and chained. The smell that hit his nostrils was atrocious: a miasma of vomit, urine and shit – and the man across the cellar was covered in all these. He was on his knees, sideways on to Henry, with handcuffed wrists in front of him as though he was praying. A chain hooked through the cuffs was secured to the wall by a metal ring. He turned to Henry, eyes wide, pleading and terrified. A strip of parcel tape was wrapped around his face. Henry heard him try to shout something from behind the tape, a muffled scream, and the man’s head started to bob furiously.

  Downie’s latest prisoner and no doubt his current, unwilling, paymaster.

  Henry’s first instinct was to go across to the man – but he checked himself and stayed put at the door, a hand holding back the three officers who were behind him, unable to see what he could, eager to move forwards.

  Where was Downie?

  ‘Anthony Downie? This is the police. I’m DCI Christie. Please show yourself now.’

  Henry’s voice echoed around the painted brick cellar walls, but he got no response.

  The manacled man continued to nod his head frantically and gesture as best he could with his hands.

  He was telling Henry where Downie was hiding.

  ‘Downie – I know you’re in there. You are wanted for murder, so please show yourself.’

  Henry’s words were greeted by no response again.

  He glanced at the constable on the step behind him. ‘He’s in here, I’m sure,’ he whispered, ‘and knowing him, the first cop through that door gets it.’ He paused. ‘That’ll be me, I guess. If I go down – don’t hesitate with him, do what you have to.’ Henry turned his attention back to the dingy cellar. ‘Downie, I’ll count to three and if you haven’t given yourself up by then, we’ll be coming in mob-handed to get you. One … two …’ He paused again, just to build up the tension because he wanted Downie to believe he’d be charging through that door on three, when in fact he wouldn’t. He was hoping the cheap con would flush him out. ‘Three,’ Henry bawled – but didn’t move.

  And it did draw Downie out from the shadows like a huge vampire emerging from hell – but armed with a machete raised menacingly.

  ‘Hell’s teeth,’ Henry uttered.

  The problem for Downie, as it was for Henry, was space, or the lack of it. He was an extra-tall man and the ceiling was low and he could not stand upright, nor slash the machete down the perpendicular from ninety degrees. He had to swing it almost horizontal to the floor and so instead of being able to chop Henry in half from the head down, he had to slice him sideways.

  Henry was trapped on the bottom step, unable to move either way, literally one of the tightest situations he’d ever been in.

  Downie’s speed increased as he rushed towards Henry, screaming, the machete raised at forty-five degrees in his right hand. If he got it right, timed it right, aimed it right, he would slash the blade across Henry’s chest from his shoulder to his hip. He might well have been wearing a stab vest for protection, but at that moment he felt very vulnerable.

  In response, Henry had to time his reaction perfectly, whatever the reaction might be. No decision was made in his head. For a millisecond he was transfixed like an idiot, watching a man he didn’t know, hadn’t even had any sort of interaction with, intending to slice him up like a tuna.

  Henry saw his opportunity as Downie whisked back the weapon. He launched himself low and hard, his right shoulder connecting with a crunch into Downie’s lower intestine and driving him back across the cellar.

  Henry was not as fit as he could have been, but the technique of a rugby tackle had not completely deserted him even though it was fifteen years since he’d pulled on a jersey in anger. He bowled Downie over on to the concrete floor as his three uniformed colleagues careered in behind him, no hesitations, as instructed. Within a few flurried moments he was pinned to the ground, then disarmed, flipped over on to his front and his wrists cuffed behind him. Henry kneeled triumphantly on his back, the policewoman lay across his legs and the two PCs held his arms down.

  Henry breathed heavily and nodded his appreciation at the three officers. ‘Thanks guys – and gal.’

  He settled his breathing and thought, One down, two to go.

  SIX

  Four days later Henry was still feeling as smug as a cat that had got the cream – and two pigeons for dessert.

  ‘I’m a great sheller of peas,’ he said with a self-satisfied smirk and continued to mix metaphors, similes and idioms whilst less than modestly boasting about the arrest and subsequent processing of Anthony Downie. ‘And it was just like shelling peas. Give a dog a bone, you know how it is. I’m like a bloody terrier,’ he went on, and on. He licked the tip of his index finger and made an imaginary tick in the air. ‘When you’ve got it, flaunt it. I am the man.’

  It was true that capturing Downie had given him a real buzz. He’d received a few pats on the back from various people – not including FB or Dave Anger – but he knew that no one was allowed to live on their laurels in Lancashire Constabulary and he would soon have to come up trumps again – because that was how the cookie crumbled.

  Just to confirm how short the victorious shelf-life was, Kate propped herself up on one elbow, gave him the look he imagined she reserved for nincompoops and said, ‘You’re actually beginning to bore me now, Henry. Anybody’d think you were the world’s greatest detective … all you did was find a wanted man. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t like cracking a major case, was it?’

  ‘Jesus, since you got that gold band on your finger you’ve changed into a real harridan. Now you think you can say anything to me, and diss me, and I’ll let it ride. Well, let me tell you something’ – he flipped round and in a flash had pinned her to the bed and clambered on top of her – ‘I won’t bloody well stand for it, wench.’

  The expression in her eyes morphed from disdain to lust. Her head bobbed up and she clamped her teeth around Henry’s bottom lip, making him squeal like a baby, before thrusting her tongue into his mouth and letting him position himself between her legs.

  Since the remarriage, their sex life had taken off stratospherically and early-morning intercourse had found its way back on to the c
urriculum. Which is why at 7.30 that morning he and Kate were wrapped around each other going at it as though the four-minute nuclear warning had sounded.

  As Kate heaved him off and climbed nimbly on top of him, pounding down remorselessly whilst he amused himself trying to prevent her breasts from wobbling, the phone went.

  ‘Bugger it,’ he said, meaning don’t answer it.

  ‘No probs.’ Kate gasped as she upped the rate and Henry responded accordingly.

  It continued to ring.

  ‘They’ll call back if it’s important.’

  ‘You betcha,’ she bounced, more breathless with each thrust.

  The phone stopped. The couple made further adjustments to their position as Kate twisted to her knees and Henry assumed the position from behind, both of them groaning out loud as he thrust away. Kate threw back her head. Henry grabbed her buttocks and emitted a lion-like growl.

  The phone started again.

  ‘We have an ansaphone,’ Henry said.

  ‘You betcha,’ Kate said, chewing on her bottom lip.

  ‘Let ’em use it,’ he grunted. The phone stopped again.

  In stereo each of them uttered moans of ecstasy.

  And then there was a sharp knock on the bedroom door, freezing both of them mid-thrust. Kate craned her neck around and they looked at each other, horrified.

  ‘Look,’ came the irritated voice from the other side of the door, ‘I know what you’re doing and I find even the thought of it abhorrent.’ It was Leanne, Kate and Henry’s younger daughter. ‘And there’s someone on the phone for you, Dad.’

  Wide-eyed, Kate hissed, ‘I didn’t know she was home.’

  ‘I never heard her come in,’ Henry gasped, withdrawing. He and Kate had hit the sack about 11.30 and had crashed out instantly, sleeping like drugged logs after a triple nightcap. Leanne must have crept in in the early hours, silently and unexpectedly. Her parents thought she was staying at a friend’s house for the night.

  ‘Damn.’ Kate crabbed sideways and Henry scrambled off the bed, muttering something very parental about kids using the house as a bloody hotel. He took two strides across to the door, stood behind it to hide his nakedness and opened it a crack.

  A foot-tapping Leanne stood there, one of the cordless phone extensions dangling loosely in her hand. She was in her Goth nightie, with ruffled hair and sleepy eyes, looking achingly beautiful to Henry, although the nose stud always jarred him a little.

  She thrust the phone at him. ‘For you,’ she said crossly. Her face scrunched into an expression of disgust. ‘You two!’ she almost spat. ‘Anybody would think you never had it off before. You gross me out.’

  Henry’s hand snaked out and took the phone. ‘I’m surprised we even get the chance with you and your sister in and out all the time, using the place …’

  ‘Like a hotel? I know – unh,’ Leanne finished for him, spun away and stalked back to her room.

  Henry closed the door and put the phone to his ear. ‘Henry Christie,’ he said, glancing over at Kate, who was smirking at him.

  ‘Henry, I’ve obviously interrupted something,’ came a knowing voice.

  ‘No you haven’t, go on.’ He walked back to the bed and placed his naked rear on the edge of it, reaching out to squeeze Kate’s arm.

  ‘Jerry Tope here, by the way.’

  ‘Mornin’, Jerry, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Just got some information for you, hot off the press. Paulo Scartarelli? One of the remaining two on your wanted list?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘Interpol have been liaising between us and the cops in Cyprus – remember I said he was supposed to be holed up there? Well, they’ve contacted us to say the police there have located Scartarelli, and what do we want to do about it?’

  ‘Arrest him?’ Henry said hopefully.

  ‘They went on to say that if that is the chosen option, they need all the original paperwork and want someone from here to go across with it, assist in the arrest and processing, and if that’s done they assure us that the bureaucracy and delay will be minimal.’

  ‘How minimal is minimal?’

  ‘Two days, maybe three.’

  Henry pondered this, scratching his groin thoughtfully. ‘You at your desk, Jerry?’ Tope said he was. ‘Just check how much is left in the Operation Wanted budget, will you?’

  ‘I’m not really supposed to access that account,’ Tope said doubtfully. ‘If I get caught …’

  ‘You’ve got my permission.’

  ‘OK, then.’ Tope got to work and Henry slumped languidly back on the bed. Kate’s hand rubbed his chest hairs gently, making him feel like purring. ‘Fourteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty pounds.’

  ‘That’s ten grand less than it was. I’ve only put in a claim for twenty quid out-of-pocket. Strange,’ Henry said, then pulled a face of indifference. Probably wasn’t anything to do with him. The chief, according to the accounts department, had given him four grand and that was it. ‘Right … when do they need a response?’

  ‘By end of play today, bearing in mind they’re two hours ahead of us.’

  ‘I’ll be in at nine, local time.’

  ‘Cyprus is really nice at this time of year,’ Tope said. ‘It’ll be a two-man job, won’t it?’

  ‘Nice try, Jerry,’ Henry laughed as he ended the call and hauled Kate back across the bed to complete some unfinished business. But with silent efficiency this time.

  In his teens Henry had avidly read all the James Bond novels and been captivated by the fictional jet-set life of the iconic secret agent. One of the books he’d been particularly fond of had started with Bond sitting in comfort on board a plane about to land in New York, contemplating the luxurious life he led. From that moment on, Henry decided that he too wanted to be a spy, living on caviar and fast women. It wasn’t to be; at the age of eighteen he had actually been for a job interview with the Diplomatic Corps and been laughed out of the office.

  As he sat cramped up in the seriously confined space of an easyJet aeroplane seat, he reflected what might have been if he’d pursued a degree in modern languages and international politics (not that he could speak any of the former and knew nothing about the latter), and become one of Bond’s colleagues.

  As it was he was crushed between an overweight woman at the window and the sturdy form of Bill Robbins in the aisle seat. In front of him was a selfish bastard who had insisted on having his seat reclined for the whole four-and-a-half-hour flight from Manchester to Pafos. He was seriously wondering if he’d get DVT from being unable to move his legs for the journey. If only he’d gone to university instead of joining the cops at nineteen with two crappy A-levels. I’d’ve been travelling first class, he whined inwardly as the plane started its descent into Cyprus.

  There had been an ungodly scramble for seats because none were actually allocated at check-in and Henry, accustomed to knowing exactly where he’d be sitting when he flew, had found himself in panic mode when the flight was called at the departure gate.

  He and Bill managed to fight their way to a pair of seats and as Henry wedged himself into the available space he knew then there was no comparison between being a cop on a budget and a secret-service agent on an expense account.

  Following the telephone conversation with Jerry Tope, after which Henry had completed his mission with Kate, he made his way to police headquarters and gone to find Tope who was chatting to DC John Rooney, husband of the flirtatious Madeline in accounts, the one with whom Henry’d had a one-nighter in the dim, distant past. When Tope spotted Henry entering the Intelligence Unit office, he brought the conversation with the DC to an end. Rooney shouldered his way out past Henry, giving him a curt nod and tight smile. They knew each other, but not well.

  Tope was all smiles, his face expectant like a pet dog which knew it was in for a treat.

  ‘Two-man job?’ he asked hopefully, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Only if you roll over and play dead,’ Henry countered.


  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Nothing. But you’re probably right, Jerry. But, no disrespect, from what little I know of Scartarelli, it’s likely I’ll need someone with me who’s got a little more in the brawn department. Which is a backhanded compliment, actually.’

  Tope’s face went south. ‘I never get out of the bloody office.’

  ‘Sorry, mate, next time maybe.’ Henry gave his shoulder a manly tap.

  ‘Ho-hum, no probs,’ Tope said accepting his lot. ‘Here’s the file and contacts.’ He gave Henry a thick folder. ‘And you’re right, he’s a dangerous git. He’ll need watching.’

  Henry nodded. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll pop up to accounts and clear the money … going to need plane tickets and lots of euros.’

  Tope scowled.

  Madeline was busy talking to her husband, who’d made his way up to see her after talking to Jerry Tope. They gave Henry a suspicious look at first, then Madeline waved at him and smiled, but made no move to speak to him. Henry had to speak to another lady in accounts instead and arranged to buy seven hundred euros, withdraw two hundred sterling and get an order number for a flight out to Cyprus. He was also given use of a constabulary credit card, just in case of emergencies.

  He then found an empty meeting room on the ground floor where he sat and read Scartarelli’s file and began making phone calls and sending emails.

  It was on the following day he knew for sure he would be going and the day after that before he and Bill Robbins actually fought their way for a seat on the easyJet flight to Pafos.

  The plane banked sharply, cutting across the magnificent Troodos Mountains then heading towards the south-west coast on its descent. Henry blew out his cheeks appreciatively as, banking again, he glimpsed the crystal-clear waters of the Mediterranean dotted with tiny whitecaps and boats across the bulk of the sleeping fat woman beside him.

  He adjusted his seat belt, stored his food tray as per instructions, and held his nose between finger and thumb, blowing hard to level out the pressure between his ears.

  ‘You OK, boss?’ Bill Robbins had noticed Henry’s discomfort.